“One of the frustrations of the policy debate has been the comment that, ‘It’s not here yet, no one is producing yet,’ ” said Peter Williams, chief executive of INEOS Bio, in an interview. Now, he said, “it’s arriving. It’s here.”

The INEOS plant heats organic materials in collected organic waste materials (food, yard clippings, etc.) which produces a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Bacteria feed on the heated waste to ferment the gas and create ethanol. The company says it intends to begin selling ethanol to US fuel companies and plans to release its first shipments later this month. “Everything we’ve done validates our views of the technology,” Williams added. “It reinforces our views of it being a very attractive value proposition as a technology for converting waste materials into bioethanol and energy. Into power, as well.”

“We expect to spend the remainder of 2013 putting the plant through its paces, and demonstrating (that the plant can reach its official capacity of eight million gallons per year)”, said Mr. Williams in the company’s official news release. “All that we have seen so far validates the technical and economic viability of the technology.” While 8,000,000 gallons sounds like a big number to me, the production would still meet only a tiny fraction of the total demand – which seems obvious once you consider that the US consumed nearly 13 billion (BILLION!) gallons of ethanol in 2012.

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